So, i've come to realize my biggest performance limitation is endurance. I'm not sure that's technically the right term. Basically I have a decent amount of strength, but my body wears out very quickly during higher intensity workouts. I can do moderate workouts forever, but anything that gets me out of breath kills me.

For example, right now I could hit the floor and do about 35 pushups before resting. However, if I first did a few pullups or was otherwise out of breath before starting the pushups, I could only do about 10 or so.

What are the general approaches to building endurance? Or what have some of you found to improve how long your body can maintain high intensity workouts?

weird, I've been researching this lately myself. I've been focusing on sprint workouts. I've included 100 yard sprints as part of my workout for the past few weeks and have really started to enjoy them. Today I incorporated ten 30-second sprints into my 45 minute run. I've read that it has to be all-out 100% sprinting for the full benefits to show.

Apparently you can incorporate this sprinting into really any exercise you want. Like if your jumping rope, jump all out for 30 seconds and then your rest will be the normal rate.

Like I said, I don't have all the answers, but I'm working on fine tuning how I incorporate sprints into my workouts. I believe it has something to do with the time when you're doing 100% all-out effort that really makes your body respond.

Yeah check out the tabata study google "tabata vo2max" you will probably see allot of good articles simplefit will build endurance and strength endurance. The interesting thing is that intensity will lend it self well to developing endurance but the reciprocal is not necessarily true and often endurance training alone can hamper strength, Interesting stuff.

As normal, I posted the quesiton first and then did my own research. Should have been the other way around. Anyway, the first web hits all seem to suggest some kind of interval training is the best way to improve endurance. That's exactly what's involved in the sprint training that Splint mentioned. Other forms of this are running hills, Fartlek training, etc. Other websites recommend a circuit of several types of exercises each performed in 30 intervals.

So the short answer for the Simplefit community is: DAY 1. Kevin, you're the man!

I think it might be worth while to also add a core and a full body exercise to the mix. So something like pullups, pushups, squats, situps, and burpees. Etc.

So to avoid an all out focus on endurance at the expense of strength, would be to do endurance only once a week or so. Don't Days 2 and 3 focus more on strength, and so, serve to balance out the entire workout schedule?

Also bear in mind that after building allot of strength ( level 6-8 ) the day 2 workout with the 3 minute rest between rounds (allowing full muscle recovery) will enable work periods of extremely high intensity output causing some big hormonal cascades!

Department of Physiology and Biomechanics, National Institute of Fitness and Sports, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan.

This study consists of two training experiments using a mechanically braked cycle ergometer. First, the effect of 6 wk of moderate-intensity endurance training (intensity: 70% of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), 60 min.d-1, 5 d.wk-1) on the anaerobic capacity (the maximal accumulated oxygen deficit) and VO2max was evaluated. After the training, the anaerobic capacity did not increase significantly (P > 0.10), while VO2max increased from 53 +/- 5 ml.kg-1 min-1 to 58 +/- 3 ml.kg-1.min-1 (P < 0.01) (mean +/- SD). Second, to quantify the effect of high-intensity intermittent training on energy release, seven subjects performed an intermittent training exercise 5 d.wk-1 for 6 wk. The exhaustive intermittent training consisted of seven to eight sets of 20-s exercise at an intensity of about 170% of VO2max with a 10-s rest between each bout. After the training period, VO2max increased by 7 ml.kg-1.min-1, while the anaerobic capacity increased by 28%. In conclusion, this study showed that moderate-intensity aerobic training that improves the maximal aerobic power does not change anaerobic capacity and that adequate high-intensity intermittent training may improve both anaerobic and aerobic energy supplying systems significantly, probably through imposing intensive stimuli on both systems.
PMID: 8897392 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]